Coleman: Common Core Data is a Treasure Trove, But Poor Kids Are Just Low Hanging Fruit

Today, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced the members of the Common Core Implementation Panel, which will undertake an immediate and comprehensive review of the rollout of the Common Core standards in New York State. In his budget address last month, the Governor proposed improving the implementation of the Common Core in New York. The panel, which includes national experts as well as New York State legislators, parents, educators, and business and community leaders, will deliver a set of recommendations before the end of the legislative session to improve the Common Core’s implementation.

“The Common Core standards are a critical part of transforming New York’s schools, and the failure to effectively implement them has led to confusion and frustration among students and their families,” Governor Cuomo said. “I urge the members of this panel to work speedily in bringing forward a set of actionable recommendations to improve the implementation of the Common Core.”

Since the Common Core was first instituted in New York, there has been significant dialogue on the subject from parents, teachers, school administrators, and community leaders from around the state that has raised the issue of problems with the program’s implementation. While the Common Core is necessary to transforming the state’s education system, like any set of standards it must be properly administered in order to truly improve New York’s schools.

On the bright side, at least Gov. Cuomo did not appoint NYSPTA Lana Amejian to serve on this committee.

Although, I am sure she must have been vying for the coveted spot.

Speaking of cronies, since the entire Core task force thing appears to be a sham, lets get to know the architect and the man behind Common Core at the outset, shall we?

He has had quite the influence on shaping education reform, after all.

One would imagine that this Yale, Oxford grad must be a pillar of strength, knowledge and respectability.

But, after seeing the man nehind the mask – that is the farthest from the truth.

David Coleman, president of the College Board and creator of the Common Core State Standards, talks to data analysts in a conference in Boston on May 31, 2013 in the clip above. In detailing how the College Board is taking a leadership role in propelling children into college through their new Access to Rigor Campaign, David Coleman callously refers to low income children as “low hanging fruit.” In his condescending manner, he jokingly says maybe he should consider another term for them, but he’ll “take it” (meaning use it anyway). The full video can be found below.

Elitism at its best?

Coleman certainly has a way with words.

In this eye brow raising clip at the NY State Department of Education presentation in April 2011, Coleman states:

“As you grow up in this world you realize people really don’t give a shit about what you feel or what you think”.

Alan Lawrence Sitomer, State Teacher of the Year for California in 2007, aired a common complaint on his blog: Coleman “has zero K–12 teaching experience. Should we really be learning how to cook from a person who’s never been in the kitchen?”

But what has proved most controversial is Coleman’s unilateral vision for American students, of college as the goal and a college-prep curriculum as the means. In public education, a new reform is always coming down the pike. Longtime educators develop a healthy cynicism about which grand policy ideas will trickle down to classrooms and which will sputter during implementation or simply go out of fashion. But David Coleman’s ideas are not just another wonkish trend. They have been adopted by almost every state, and over the next few years, they will substantively change what goes on in many American classrooms.

After his Rhodes scholarship in England, Coleman was turned down for a job teaching public high school in New York.